01 March 2005

New Zealand-based biopharmaceutical company Protemix has announced the appointment of Larry Ellingson as its new Chief Executive Officer.

Mr Ellingson, a former Eli Lilly and Company executive and current Chairman of the American Diabetes Association, will be based in Protemix’s new San Diego offices from June 2005.

His focus will be on extending and developing Protemix’s commercial relationships, in particular, to progress Laszarin TM , the company’s lead compound, through Phase 3 (human) trials for the treatment of heart failure in people with diabetes.

Mr Ellingson will also be responsible for further developing the corporate team covering regulatory affairs, clinical trials, and business development.

New Zealander Professor Garth Cooper, previously founder of billion dollar biotech company, Amylin Pharmaceuticals, and currently Protemix’s President and Chief Technical Officer, explains that Protemix will operate jointly in the United States and New Zealand.

“This is an example of a New Zealand company reaching out to collaborate with the United States on a topic of great importance to both countries. We expect Phase 3 trials in humans to begin in early 2006. If successful in Phase 3, Laszarin™, which is the first treatment in its class, has a potential worldwide market of over two million people with diabetic heart failure,” says Professor Cooper.

Laszarin™ is a therapeutic copper binding molecule due to enter Phase 3 clinical trials for the treatment of heart failure in people with diabetes.

Laszarin™ has been shown in experimental models to significantly alleviate heart failure following seven weeks of treatment, without lowering blood glucose. It was also shown to substantially improve the structure of cardiac muscle cells, and to reverse scarring of the heart.

“Larry is uniquely placed to advance Laszarin ™ and Protemix to the next level internationally and San Diego is an ideal location to base our northern hemisphere operations. It has good universities and resources and the number of other biotech companies established there means that there are the skilled people we need to bring these new medicines to market,” says Professor Cooper.

“I believe we will be able to make a major contribution to alleviating suffering from diabetes, a major cause of death worldwide, with the first of our new compounds. Within a year we will probably have three potential new medicines in human trials, which is pretty remarkable for any one company,” says Mr Ellingson.

Mr Ellingson is confident of the commercial viability of Protemix’s science. “This is not a one molecule company. With three compounds in the development phase and a further six in the discovery pipeline, Protemix has an impressive platform from which to advance towards commercialization.”

“Protemix has brought forward a number of potential new medicines in much shorter period of time achieved elsewhere,” says Mr Ellingson.

Until 2001, Mr Ellingson was Executive Director for Endocrine Professional Relations and Advocacy at US pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly.

Mr Ellingson will continue to serve as a Director with the American Diabetes Association after completing his year as Chairman of the Board, which ends in June 2005 at the association’s annual meeting in San Diego.

Protemix will continue to base its research facilities located within the University of Auckland.

“We are opening a portal to the world, not just the US, but to Europe and the rest of Asia Pacific,” says Mr Ellingson.

“ New Zealand science is getting out there in the global marketplace. “

For more information:
www.protemix.co.nz